MAILBAG: Submit your questions for Alex's piece
Haven't done a mailbag since January, so figured it's about time to do one again. Send in any questions you have on any topic you want answers to and I will do my best to answer as many as possible.
We’ve been spoiled with excellent and seasoned kicking and punting for a while now. What can reasonably be considered “success” in kicking and punting this year?
Give us your HOTTEST TAKE about the upcoming Michigan season. In the hot take voice of course.
Yep, I read that in Brian's Podcast Hot Take voice.....
Does UM develop a legitimate deep WR threat this year?
JJ McCarthy is getting a lot of attention going into this season as one of the premiere QBs in the country, but is he going to get the chance to throw the ball enough for it to even matter? Last year the coaches seemed content to run the ball approximately 1 million (Dr. Evil laugh) times per game and ground teams into hamburger slowly as opposed to trying to open it up with his arm. With both Corum and Edwards back, is there any reason not to expect the same thing this year?
This question has been asked and speculated on one million times already. Please god not again
Well I didn’t read that shit so I want to see it now.
Jim Harbaugh is the coach.
He chose to run it up the gut vs a TCU team coached to stop the run. He chose to run it up the gut vs a nearly NFL defense in Georgia.
Jim Harbaugh is the coach. That is your answer.
Maybe this can be answered directly rather than waiting for the mailbag.
What, if any, value is there to subscribing to B1G+? Are there full games available for rewatch?
I noticed that I really only used it for non-football/basketball viewing. I watched multiple hockey games via B1G+ and that was about it. I'm sure if I was an avid softball/volleyball/baseball/etc. viewer, then it would've been very useful for about $10 a month.
What about seasons of full football game replays? Are they available there? Icould see using it occasionally since it seems the only source of full replays are found on the high seas now. I would probably use it to watch the hockey team, but that depend completely on how well the Wings are doing.
What exactly is the lingering, unfixable issue with M’s NIL program compared to other purportedly less scrupulous schools? Is there any chance of fixing it?
this was well covered in HTTV
but generally:
- UM doesn't pay or promise to pay recruits (inducement)
- UM doesn't pay or support collectives that pay on the basis of being on the football team (pay for play)
- UM does support NIL, which means one should do or sell or license "something" in order to earn the $
We currently have a top-5 recruiting class, brought in some good grad transfers and convinced a half-dozen quality senior players to come back to school, so ... is there actually an NIL problem?
I think people think it is because Hunter Dickinson has said he's making more at Kansas than at Michigan. But I personally think that's more reflective of how much the respective schools and their fans support basketball right now, rather than a deeper NIL problem. I suspect the money is going to the team that is winning; that success is being reinforced.
I think there is also the fact the Dickinson is only as impactful as his team decides he is going to be. Teams around Dickinson largely can play Hunter-ball, which is dump it in and hope his jump hook falls, or play the game they would be playing without him in the game, and the two things share almost no qualities.
Hunter is a good player, but he does not breed cohesion. I don't think Howard fought that hard to keep him around.
One thing is Kansas is known as a Blue Blood of college basketball and they are way more into the success of their BBall program then their football team. That is the reason they pony up the $$$$$ for basketball as that is Kansas big money maker for the university.
This. It seems like a crazy double-standard: We want players to come here for the money, but we also all seem to agree that players who only to a school for the money will quickly transfer somewhere else (as has happened at Texas A&M, and to some extent MSU).
I really don't know what it will take to convince people that we're handling it all just fine. More recruits or transfers who announce that they're coming here because of the money we're offering?
Because otherwise ... seems like we're handling it all just fine.
Either way, good God I can't wait for another entire WTKA roundtable talking about NIL.
NIL is a market economy, and it's a new economy, or at least that fact that it is now above-board adds novelty to information sharing. The various actors in this market are learning on the fly. How much is a player worth, how much is too much, how much should money factor in a recruitment? All of these questions are still being answered in real time.
To be fair to the endless WTKA discussions, the football team is remarkably settled with proven returners at most positions, so there's not a hell of a lot to talk about. NIL at least provides surprises - it was less than 24 months ago that people thought TAMU was going to be the new kings of CFB with their money cannon, and we all saw how that worked out.
NIL is about the only source of novelty and unexpected events right now.
Texas A&M isn't the only example of a team with large NIL deals. Georgia is doing just fine. It's not like UM football would collapse upon itself if players made more than they are making now. The Lions didn't have a culture problem with Aidan Hutchinson making more money than other established players on their team. With states like Texas loosening the NIL rules, I'm not sure you can see the Michigan approach is the correct one. It's a matter of opinion I guess.
Top 5 based on quantity. When the dust settles in December, it will be out of the top 5.
Politics, religion and sexy bits - a hitchhikers guide to Bolivia
1. How big of an impact will the departure of Biff Poggi be on the program?
2. Seth & Brian talked about who would replace Jim if he actually leaves at the end of this year. Do you think that's a real possibility or has he tamed his wanderlust for good?
3. I really like the question asked above on the kicking game. We've been spoiled for a while now, what should our expectations be for this year?
As a reference, Harbaugh is 35-6 (.854 winning percentage) with Poggi and 39-19 (.672 winning percentage) without Poggi at Michigan.
I really hope correlation does not equal causation in this instance.
Maybe I missed it, but I don't remember there being too much talk about Poggi around here until that Athletic article came out last fall .... just in time for him to interview at Charlotte.
Welp, thanks for the mid-summer, irrational panic before I see results. Keep stats like that to yourself kthx.
Maybe Poggi is the man, but if so, it's kind of weird that the only college football programs that seem to think so are Michigan and Charlotte.
If his wikipedia article is correct, this is his résumé:
1987 - Citadel (assistant)
1988-2015 - High school
2016 - Michigan (analyst)
2017-20 - High school again
2021-22 - Michigan (associate HC)
2023 - Charlotte (HC)
If he was that important to our success, why didn't we fight more to keep him, and why have no other P5 programs given him a shot?
I think we'll survive.
It's solely a Harbaugh thing. Harbaugh is a football genius, but a terrible communicator. He struggles with organizational alignment because the things he says don't always line up in other people's heads as well as they line up in his. Poggi is an organizational expert (with plenty of experience from the business world) who doesn't quite have the football knowledge of other coaches.
At Michigan, Poggi was able to help align players and coaches with Harbaugh, whether at a macro level (motivation) or at a micro level (how to run a play). I think Feldman called Poggi "Harbaugh's translator." I think the work Poggi did the last couple years will help this year, but absent truly replacing him with someone else with a similar skill set, I see Harbaugh's program developing cracks.
Do you base that on anything other than the one article that came out when Charlotte was hiring him?
I remember a lot of glowing articles about Brady Hoke in January 2011, too. Tom Brady said he was awesome!
I’m not saying that article was wrong, but it struck me as Harbaugh trying to help Poggi land the job by getting a friendly writer to write a piece to sway public opinion.
I think the bottom line is that if he were that crucial to our success, we would have fought more to keep him.
Pointing to intangibles is like reading tea leaves. Who knows what effect Poggi really had? Definitely respected and missed, but if his intangible was translating Harbaugh, we have pretty much the same coaches this year and a lot of the same players. They should be familiar with Harbaugh's quirks.
I have a friend who is a Charlotte Alumni. I'm excited to watch Boggi and our former players a couple of times this year. I just wish Cade and All went there too.
It would be one thing if Poggi had always been Harbaugh’s right-hand man, but Harbaugh had plenty of success at San Diego, Stanford and the 49ers without him. We’re probably making a bigger deal of his departure than it is.
One reason and I could be wrong is he is old. Not a younger coach and that might be the reason. But like I said he is older and wouldn't make sense for a big time program.
The first one is honestly a big concern for me, and I’m no concern troll. Without Poggi, Harbaugh has done some dumb stuff:
Hired Pep Hamilton and didn’t have a dedicated WR coach the year he had probably the best WR recruiting class in program history come in as Freshmen.
Split interior OL and TE/Tackles between Drevno and Frey. Kept Drevno on staff so we missed out on every late committing OL prospect/target in the 2018 class.
Brought in zone D/ zone blitz specialists to work with Don Brown, resulting in the 2020 defensive abomination where they didn’t have the personnel or knowledge to run anything well.
Brought Don Brown back for an encore after the 2018 debacle in the Shoe. Debate this one if you like, but 2019 was basically a repeat on the M defensive side of the ball… along with 35-0 deficit at Wisconsin while starting Ben Mason at DT.
Hired Bob Shoop as a safeties coach… which he did via Zoom or something absurd. See also 2020 defense.
I think he needs someone on staff he trusts that will tell him that his occasional stupid ideas are stupid and to not do them. A “no man”, if you will. Hopefully we’ll Wile E Coyote our way through this year, because next year is going to be a massive staff and roster rebuild where a lot of big decisions are going to be made.
Did you guys have any inkling about the NU hazing, and have you ever heard about anything like that at Michigan?
What will the offense be missing with Matt Weiss gone, do they have another math whiz kid to take his place? What will Sherrone Moore be able to do more of now that Weiss is gone?
Who are 3 guys on offense and 3 guys on defense who you think will make a big jump in playing time and production?
Where do you think we still need to improve in the recruiting battles across the country?
When will Alex make an appearance on the MGORoundtable?
Do you believe there is some systemic issue into how Michigan prepares for postseason games, whether its CFP or bowl game? Since Harbaugh has arrived, Michigan has won exactly one postseason game, and there are only two games that I can look at and say Michigan lost because the other team was just flat out better (Citrus Bowl vs. Bama, and CFP Semi-Final vs. Georgia).
When I look back at last year's TCU game, or the Outback Bowl vs. South Carolina (2017) or the 2018 Peach Bowl, Michigan seems to have lost those games on so many self-inflicted mistakes, or in the case of the Peach Bowl, just showed up looking like they might not want to be there and probably couldn't match the intensity of the team lining up across from them. I believe Michigan was favored in the 2016 Orange Bowl as well, and then mistakes they didn't normally make happened in that game, along with Dalvin Cook taking over.
In Harbaugh's defense, Michigan's postseason struggles have been a thing for a long, long time. Hoke won exactly one bowl game (a Sugar Bowl that he probably had no business winning), RichRod's Gator Bowl was a disaster, Lloyd finished with a 6-7 bowl record if memory serves correctly, and Bo had a horrendous bowl record.
Bowl games are weird and you often get matched up with teams you hardly ever see, but its odd that a program with the stature that Michigan has consistently underwhelms and underperforms in the postseason. Do you think its all a massive coincidence, or is there something larger at work?
Great question.
Is it reasonable to expect that Alex has both the Michigan program connections and connections to other programs to know if we do anything different? Seems like he could provide a really good educated guess but that is all.
I don't know, pal. Its just an honest question. Alex said "Send in any questions you have on any topic you want answers to and I will do my best to answer as many as possible."
He didn't say "Only send me questions that I have the necessary connections to reach out to so empirical data can be provided."
He doesn't have to answer it if he doesn't want, but I've been curious about this for a long time, and I'd like to know what someone who is much more plugged into the football program than I am has to say about it. I think its an extremely fair and relevant question to ask. If you don't, okie dokie.
FWIW I talked about this a couple of days ago when I suggested Harbaugh needed to "Biff Poggi" his bowl preparation because what he's doing isnt working. Having watched Michigan football since 1969 I've seen a very noticeable and common thread among ALL Michigan HCs when it comes bowl preparation and yes, it's different than what most schools do.
Michigan takes the month before the bowl game to hone in their game plan, their execution and theirs reps. We never (with the exception of the Florida Outback Bowl game in 07) bread tendencies or try things we havent already put on film. In other words, 'if it aint broke, dont break it" and we roll in doing exactly what we've been doing all season.
Other teams take the month to do the exact opposite. Self scout, break tendencies and look for our weaknesses to exploit.
Bo did it, Mo did it, Lloyd did it, RichRod did it, Brady did it and now Harbaugh's doing it. And it doesnt fucking work. <insert sad face emoji>
Love the question. I think this, hopefully, gets fixed with the 12 team playoff and there not being a month off between games.
The one other thing I'd say is that I'd give JH a bit of a pass on the Orange Bowl game. No Peppers (out for draft) and Jake Butt goes down in the first Quarter. Arguably our best players on each side of the ball are gone and we still nearly won that basically home game for FSU.
Right with you on the general sentiment of the question though. Brutally bad Postseason record.
Will Blake Corum really be as effective as he was last year?
Is Michigan going to maintain the level of team chemistry that they've had for the last 2 years?
Why is it so difficult in recruiting cornerbacks ... It seems we have missed on so many good-elite prospects and it seems to be the only hole in our recruiting.. And the portal usually doesn't produce good transfer corners...
Thanks for dong this, Alex. It's one of my favorite features on this site.
One aspect of NIL that I find incredibly curious but elusive is NIL's effect on a particular team's locker room climate/culture. Specifically, I always suspected that the Texas A&M approach of using gigantic NIL funds to sign elite 5-star recruits was doomed to crush most programs because it creates an untenable dynamic in which largely unproven rising freshman are receiving vast sums of money compared to upperclassmen that have actually proven their talent/dedication on the field. In real life locker rooms, I don't see how that approach doesn't end poorly. I concede that star ratings do very much matter. That said, I know of few championship teams that have a toxic locker room.
I have long suspected that NIL would be more sustainable if large sums and an accompanying support structure were directed to players that are proven on-the-field producers and/or locker room leaders. As soon as a player produces, and has proven to fit a team's culture, teams should do everything legally in their power to help these players to maximize their NIL earnings. And don't get me started on TV revenue sharing, but that's a different discussion.
How has NIL affected Michigan's locker room? I know the team's record the past two seasons might speak for itself, but I'm curious to hear your opinion in the context of my thoughts above.
Also, what, if anything, have you heard about the locker room dynamics in team's that have gone the "pay-for-play/pay-before-play" route?
Olu O discussed this last year on a podcast interview he did. He said it had no affect at all. Players talked about it, but the guys were happy for each other and not envious.
Thanks, canzior! I'll do a google search for the podcast myself, but if you have a link, please post it as well just in case.
When I listen to Olu, I'll be curious if his comments are more general about players supporting other players, or, if he comments specifically on the practice of "pay-for-play/pay-before-play."
Players should 100% support their teammates earning as much as possible. That said, I think in reality "pay-before-play" creates an unworkable dynamic if high school seniors/rising freshman are getting paid gobs of money under the guise of NIL when it's really just a front to induce a commitment. Anyone who has been around a football locker room before knows that it has to be a meritocracy for it to be healthy. There's a lot of nuance to this issue, so I don't mean to suggest it's a one-size-fits-all. I just think the Texas A&M approach is going to fail miserably, but it's too soon to know if this belief is right or wrong.
Edit: Here's the link: https://youtu.be/MDvfNRnJn9A
That could certainly be Olu's experience at Michigan, but I'd wonder if all teams are equally as supportive. I'd guess that there as many places where the players congratulate each other as places where there's envy and venom around who's getting paid and how much.